Alan's Free [Prog.] Electronic Blog

Pineal Origins by Quartz Safari is remarkably complex compared to a lot of other ambient-type electronic recordings that I've heard. Rather than just choosing a few notes to drone over the duration of 10+ minutes and then call it a day, these recordings take serene field recordings (birds, water, etc.), heavily digitized electronic manipulations, and very light post-rock sounding guitar recordings and pack them into very dense ambient soundscapes that are some of the best I've heard since Tim Hecker released Ravedeath, 1972 earlier this year (admittedly, not a very long time, but still...). Definitely a great overseas collaboration (US to Norway) that shouldn't go unheard for fans of dense ambient electronic music.

I'd also like to use this post to recommend some decent upbeat techno music. Tecra's music is generally just okay, but their free EP Pitch Mode includes a song called "Winter of 95's Trance" which I think is quite good, even if it is the only track on the EP that isn't mostly annoying. But just look at that sweet anime rack, dude.

Thanks for reading!

Another long distance collaboration from artists in the US and Norway, Granules' Unfolding is glitchy improvisational ambient music built from microsounds and more field recordings, and it is very cold and glorious. I've personally never been to Norway, but I can imagine walking through the streets of a snowy Oslo at dawn and hearing the icicles mingle with each other as they dangle and drop and shatter upon impact on the freshly hardened earth, and the water that slowly drips and drops from their stronger peers also comes into play on the sound of this album. At some points, the weak radiation of the receding sunlight across the snow pulses delicately and almost therapeutically, and birds of the cold quietly croon against the beauty being so naturally displayed and relayed into your ears. And somewhere, a computer exists and it's making noise from probably dialing-up to the internet, but whatever. It's cold ambient electronic music, ya dig?

Enjoy! And thanks for reading/listening!

Here's more of the same glitchy microsound music with a slightly increased amount of abstractness. Enjoy.

Yea, tough econ - wait, what?